Posts
The cool cover art depicts a very patriotic Eagle Knight holding the banner of Andoran high while a hobgoblin raider is about to bring a very painful weapon down. The inside front cover is a map of the country that does a good job noting geographical terrain features (rivers, mountains, forests, etc.) and settlements, though it'd be handy to have roads or trails depicted (if any) that connect the settlements. The inside back cover is the cover image sans text. The interior art design is solid, and the artwork is excellent when it comes to monsters but only a little better than average when humans are depicted.
The Gazetteer establishes that Andoran is the Inner Sea's first republic, and contains an interesting history of the country, along with a detailed description of how its government operates. I especially appreciate the incorporation of material from some classic 3.5-era modules involving Falcon's Hollow, material from adventure paths, and even Pathfinder Society scenarios. In short, I love it when authors do their homework and make a seamless web of lore across various lines! The section devotes four pages each to various important cities or areas: Almas, Arthfell, Carpenden Plains, Darkmoon Vale, and the Verduran Forest. The material provides a nice general overview (Bellis, for example, seems like a great "home town" for a low-level campaign), though some more adventure hooks would have been nice.
The Andoren Factions section focusses on the Eagle Knights (and their various sub-units), with a handy sidebar noting other Paizo books that include additional details. The Lumber Consortium, Primordial Ones, and Seven Houses get about a page each (I've never heard of the last two). New feats are included for each faction, and they look pretty solid. The writing and artwork remain strong in this section.
Adventures in Andoran provide 5-6 paragraphs of information each on various adventure sites: Arthfell Forest, Black Forks, Candlestone Caverns, Claes Redoubt, The Colony, Crystal Falls, Diggen's Rest, Droskar's Crag, Nogortha Necropolis, Occarin, The Portside Strangler. and Selian's Watch. There's a lot of great leads here for an enterprising GM to build on.
Last up is the Bestiary. Random encounter tables are provided for each of the cities/areas covered in the Gazetteer, but I find them way too broadly spread in terms of CR to be really feasible in play. One-page entries are then provided for either new creature types or individuals: Cervapral Agathion's (antelope-men!), the Bee-Man of Bellis (a super-cool guy with swarm-like powers and a neat story premise), Candlestone Courtiers (fey emissaries), Corrupt Politicians (very useful for stories with lots of role-playing), Eagle Knights (having generic stat blocks are great for NPCs), Fellsigs (undead who arise from molten rock deaths), Erinat Gremlins (proprietors of discord--good for very low level stories), Lumber Consortium Enforcers (very useful for the Darkmoon Vale modules), Ragewright (raging undead barbarians!), Sawdust Slough (kinda silly supernatural cloud of sawdust), Silverblood Lycanthrope (power wanes with the moon), and Talmandor (avoral agathion and non-divine patron of Andoran). I think it's one of the best and most extensive bestiaries I've ever found in the Campaign Setting Line, and something I should make more use of.
And that's the book! Andoran is a major aspect of many adventures and PC options in Golarion, so having a copy of Andoran, Birthplace of Freedom on hand would be a wise option.
